Category: On this day in Tudor Time

On this Day, March 21st, in Tudor Time…

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On This Day 21st March 1525

On 21st March 1525 Commissioners were appointed to raise the ‘Amicable Grant’, an idea that Cardinal Wolsey had come up with to raise money for another war with France. Wolsey tended to a pacific foreign policy, but Henry VIII was more bellicose. Unfortunately, by the mid-1520s, he was also very short of money. An enormous amount of tax had been levied in 1523, supplemented by a huge subsidy from the clergy, but now more money was needed, ostensibly to be provided by a loan. Violent unrest was the result, and some of the commissioners sent to collect it were manhandled. Eventually, the grant was cancelled, but the fiasco undermined Henry VIII’s confidence in Cardinal Wolsey.

On this day, 9th of February in Tudor time…

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On This Day 9th February 1498

 

On 9th February 1498 of John, Viscount Welles died. Welles was the half-brother of Lady Margaret Beaufort, and thus uncle to Henry VII. As part of Henry’s policy of integrating Lancastrian and Yorkist supporters (as well as ensuring that his York sisters-in-law were married to men loyal to himself), Welles was married to Cicely of York in 1487. The couple had two daughters, who both died as children. Cicely remarried in a match which was widely disapproved of.

On this day, 6th of February in Tudor time…

  

On This Day 6th February 1587
On 6th February 1587, in the Great Hall at Fotheringhay Castle, the warrant for her execution was read aloud to Mary, Queen of Scots. It bore the flamboyant signature of her cousin, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and was the culmination of nearly 20 years of captivity. Mary had come to England as a supplicant, following the defeat of her forces at the Battle of Langside in 1568. She hoped the English Queen would support her in regaining the throne that she had lost following the tumult that erupted after the assassination of her husband. Elizabeth, strongly influenced by her Secretary, Sir William Cecil, who had an implacable distrust of the Catholic Mary, had held her captive in a series of locations across the north and midlands of England. Numerous plots to free her and put her on the English throne, some undoubtedly with Mary’s support, had finally culminated in a trial that Mary refused to recognise and a death sentence.

14th of January, On this day in Tudor time…

  

On this day, 14th of January 1526 in Tudor time:

On 14th January 1526, François I of France and Emperor Charles V signed the Treaty of Madrid. François claimed later it was done under duress, and, in fact, he had little choice. His forces had been completely defeated by Charles at the Battle of Pavia, and François himself captured. In summary, the terms of the Treaty were that François would cede his claim to the Duchy of Milan, and to the Burgundian territories which had been denied to Charles’ grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, because French law would not recognise female succession. Francois was obliged to offer up his two sons as hostages, and agree to marry Charles’s sister, Eleonor, the widowed Queen of Portugal. As soon as he was safe in France, François repudiated the treaty.

On this day, 31st of December, in Tudor time…

  

On This Day 31st December 1580

On 31st December 1580, James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton was arrested for complicity in the murder of Lord Darnley. Morton was the fourth of the regents who had been appointed during the minority of James VI, after the deposition of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Of the other three, two had been assassinated (Moray and Lennox) and one had died, probably of natural causes. Morton was a more successful regent than his predecessors, in that he finally overcame the Queen’s Party, and he also had the backing of the Queen of England. However, he had many enemies, and lost control of the government for a period in 1578, before regaining his position. By 1580, he was on exceptionally bad terms with James Stewart, Earl of Arran – cousin and close friend of 14 year old James VI. Arran accused him in Council of involvement in the murder of Darnley, the King’s father, and he was tried and executed. 

On this day, 24th December, in Tudor time…

  

On This Day 24th December 1514



On 24th of December 1514, Thomas Wolsey was appointed Lord Chancellor of England. Wolsey, of undistinguished birth, had shown early academic and political skills and had entered the household of Henry VII in around 1505. On the accession of Henry VIII, Wolsey rapidly became one of his most important councillors. His organisational skills were particularly appreciated during the French campaign of 1512. For the next 17 years Wolsey was to be second only to the King in power and influence in England. 

Thomas Wolsey is our person of the month of January. I’ll be posting all aspects of his life especially during the time of his influence. 

Subscribe/Follow this blog so you don’t miss out on all the new content to come! In 2016, I’ll be implementing guest articles, biographies, book reviews and much, much more! For a bit of a taste, below is some aspects of Cardinal Wolsey I will include on his being Person of the Month:

Guest Article
‘Hampton Court Palace: Wolsey’s Masterpiece’ by Daniel Jackson
We are delighted to have a Guest Article from Daniel Jackson, a Curator of Historic Buildings for Historic Royal Palaces. Daniel tells us about the history and construction of Wolsey’s great masterpiece on the Thames that became a Royal Palace and an icon of the Tudor age.


Life Story
Thomas Wolsey rose from being the son of an Ipswich butcher to being called the Arbiter of Europe and a credible candidate for the Papacy. Whilst he was not the first man to climb to power through the Church, he was one of the most talented, ambitious and controversial figures to wield power in England. Henry VIII’s right hand man for fifteen years, his eventual fall was as precipitous as his rise.

Following in the Footsteps

Wherever Wolsey went, whether on a diplomatic mission to France or the Empire or merely to carry out his daily functions as Privy Councillor and Lord Chancellor, his journeyings were occasions of pomp and pageantry.

Wolsey: The Life of King Henry VIII’s Cardinal

Wolsey was a byword in his own time for magnificence and extravagance. He understood the importance of spectacle and outward appearance as a tool of power and brought this to bear in his building programmes and his diplomatic triumphs.

* Thomas Wolsey: Patron of Education

* The Field of Cloth of Gold  

* Thomas Wolsey: In History & Literature

Book Reviews

Wolsey is the subject of one of the earliest biographies ever written, and then a couple of works in the 1970s, including the best academic reference, The King’s Cardinal by Peter Gwyn.

The most recent biography of Wolsey is Wolsey: The King’s Cardinal by John Matusiak.

  
 

On this day, 19th December, in Tudor time…

  

On This Day 19th December 1521
On 19th December 1521, Henry VIII wrote in his own hand to his nephew-by-marriage, the Emperor Charles V. Henry, notorious for disliking writing, excused the shortness of his note by saying he was suffering from catarrh and headache. The letter was full of the usual compliments – thanks to Charles for receiving Cardinal Wolsey, and writing to Henry, and confirmation that any injury done to Charles would be considered an injury to Henry himself.

On this day in Tudor time…

  

On This Day 17th December 1538
On 17th December 1538, Pope Paul III published a bull of excommunication against Henry VIII. The original bull had been drawn up on 30 August 1535, but held in abeyance in the hope that Henry would be reconciled to Rome. But, having tasted the power of being the head of both Church and state in England, there was no turning back for the King. The particular act that Paul III cited as provoking the excommunication, was the desecration of the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, and the burning of the saint’s bones.

On this day in Tudor time…

  
On This Day 6th December 1491
On 6th December 1491 fourteen year old Anne, Duchess of Brittany, was married to Charles VIII of France in completion of the Treaty of Vergers. Anne had inherited the duchy from her father, Francois II, who had spent the greater part of his life trying to protect the independence of Brittany from a France newly resurgent after the misery and costs of the Hundred Years War began to recede. The Regent of France, Anne of Beaujeu, had pursued the policy of her father, Louis XI, to surround and incorporate the various independent fiefs surrounding France and control the mighty feudal princes who still controlled large territories, outside crown control. Brittany became involved in internal French struggles,known as the ‘Mad War’ and following defeat in battle in 1488, Francis had been obliged to submit to France as a vassal. Before his death, Francis had tried to arrange for Anne to marry Maximilian, King of the Romans (later Emperor), and a betrothal had taken place. However, Francis died before the marriage could be completed and the French claimed the right to act as Anne’s feudal overlords. The marriage to Maximilian was annulled and Charles, who was twenty-one, became her husband. The marriage was not happy, and produced no children. Charles died in 1498 after hitting his head on a door, and was succeeded by his cousin Louis d’Orleans, as both king and husband.

Tudor tidbits 

  

On This Day 8th November 1576
On 8th November 1576, the provinces of the Netherlands, regardless of their religious affiliations, signed an agreement whereby the whole of the Netherlands agreed to mutiny against the rule of Philip II of Spain, their hereditary duke. Philip’s great-grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, had inherited the lands from her father, Charles the Bold (or Rash, as he was sometimes termed). Mary had died young, falling from a horse, to be succeeded by her son, Philip, then her grandson, the Emperor Charles V. Charles had been brought up largely in Ghent and was therefore accepted as overlord, even though the day to day running of the Netherlands had been left first to his aunt, Marguerite, daughter of Mary, and then to his sister, Mary of Hungary. By the time Philip, born and brought up in Spain, succeeded, the familial link seemed very tenuous. By the 1570s around half the territories had converted to the Calvinist Reformed faith, whilst the southern areas remained largely Catholic. Whilst Philip came to terms with the leaders of the various provinces, peace did not last long.